Raines went toe to toe with football giant Miami Northwestern and brought home the fourth state championship in program history in a thriller.
The Bulls scored on a busted coverage touchdown with just under two minutes to play but the Vikings calmly answered in their biggest moment of the year with 10 seconds left to win a 23-22 epic at Pitbull Stadium against the hometown Bulls.
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It was a championship a year in the making. Raines (14-0) used the humility of a 41-0 loss to Northwestern last year as motivation for this year’s revenge tour and it paid off.
Timothy Cole II marched Raines down the field with poise, converting a fourth down with an 11-yard pass to Tadarius Washington. One play later, Cole went back to Washington on a short pass, and Washington barreled his way past a couple defenders and into the left corner of the end zone for a 17-yard touchdown. Washington shrugged off one tackler and leveled another at the goal line.
Cole had just put Raines in front with a 9-yard touchdown run with 2:30 to go to give the Vikings a 17-16 edge. But the Bulls answered in two plays, with Neiman Lawrence finding Nicholas Lennear with no one Raines player around him. It went for 62 yards and sapped the electricity from the Vikings.
Cole’s score was set up by an interception by Geterius Brown at the Northwestern 43 with just over five minutes to play.
The Vikings were plagued by turnovers before finally scratching out something on defense of their own. Midway through the third quarter, Northwestern was knocking on the door of the Raines end zone and dialed up a pass over the middle for Neiman Lawrence. But Johdeem Jones picked it off and went 90 yards the other way. Jones fumbled it at the Bulls 3 but Makhel Smith-York fell on it in the end zone and put Raines on the scoreboard with a 7-6 lead.
The Bulls inched back in front three minutes later on Alex Lima’s third field goal of the game to put the Bulls back in front 9-7 and pushed that to two possessions on a 1-yard touchdown run by Calvin Russell early in the fourth quarter.
They’ll once again be a contender to get back to Miami in 2026, although they’ll have to replace foundational players in the program.
Raines will graduate the all-time leading passer (TJ Cole) and receiver (Ziyon Butler) in program history. They’ll also have to replace multiyear starters like Tony Williams (linebacker), defensive tackle Brown, edge Cameron Washington and just about every offensive weapon.
There’s talent waiting in the wings. Quarterback Sa’mon Ellison-Morgan played a good bit this year for Cole as Raines built monstrous leads and plugged in reserves to soak up playing time.
The good news for 2026 and ’27 – Raines won’t have to worry about Miami Northwestern. The Bulls are slated to move up to Class 4A. On paper, Miami Central will likely enter 2026 on the short list as state championship favorite. Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons and Sarasota Booker would be in that conversation as well.
The Vikings slugged it out from the start, holding Northwestern to a 24-yard field goal on the opening drive of the game and then stopping the Bulls on downs after Tony Williams got his hand on a fourth-down pass at the Raines 4 at the end of the quarter. The biggest play of the half was courtesy of Shareef Jackson. Travail Mathis ripped off a run from the Raines 10 and had a perfect path to the end zone. But Jackson knocked the ball loose and then recovered it in the end zone.